towerofanimus | ☠ 001 | demons in my deepest eyes play on that tree

Entry tags:

☠ 001 | demons in my deepest eyes play on that tree

Characters: Avenger, 03-02 roomies, and YOU
Setting: Room 03-12, and then various tower floors.
Format: Beginning with action spam, but shifting to prose is fine as well. I'll respond in whichever one you choose.
Summary: Avenger wakes up in the middle of the night to fine the apocalypse had apparently occurred while he was napping. He is not very impressed and boycotts the oatmeal. 'Shirou' unknowingly suffers for it. And well. On pretending to be Shirou... If a routine worked before coming here, why fix it?
Warnings: AVENGER IS HIS OWN WARNING. So is Saber. Shirou vomiting up his breakfast. Also casual mentions of death, violence, typical fare for the Tower of Animus. Probably rampant self-loathing if Archer decides to pop in here.

[ SCENARIO A || FLOOR 13: CATHEDRAL ]

[Upon awakening in the gloom of night in his dorm and discovering his arms were fashioned from lead, his legs were rigid and wouldn't move according to his will, Avenger felt very little beyond mild irritation. Staring blankly up at the dark ceiling, he opened his mouth to curse. Nothing came out, not a word nor grunt. His tanned limbs don't respond to him, and it's only through old practice that he pushes back the trickle of raising panic seeping into him and instead tries to remember what he could last recall happening. Bazett. The declaration of boredom. Her anger. His laughter, and offered hand. Then his only recollection was that of darkness.

Okay. That was troubling.

Particularly troubling because the Servant couldn't sense the flow of prana between them anymore, and generally, that never meant good things for a Servant separated from his Master. If the contract had been properly severed, surely he would have felt it break and he would have returned to the void from which he came. Yet he had sensed nothing along those lines and he obviously still existed somehow. The constant slight ebbing of his prana reserves, dropping as it became more and more of a struggle to maintain the closed garden and its loops, had creased as well. It was refreshing.

Still troublesome.

His conclusion was this wasn't the time loops. Something had happened to disrupt that. It only made sense. Largely because he had noticed, even if Bazett had unexpectedly knocked him out without him noticing, this wasn't the mansion. Nor anywhere else in Fuyuki City. He knew that town down to a square foot. Once the sleep paralysis faded from his form, he sat up in bed and stared in bewildered repulsion in the weird attire he was currently dressed in. Yep, definitively not Bazett's handiwork. She couldn't be that mad at him. Thankfully, after getting up off the bed and being oh-so careful to not disturb whoever were the sleeping lumps in the other beds, he locates his trunk and the clothes inside it.

Once dressed and the stupid uniform dutifully ripped to shreds, he snatches up the two papers on the bedstand and reads through them, slowly and occasionally stopping to re-read one section or another. After reaching the end of the letters, he was torn between rage and disinterested apathy. Rage that he had been in the middle of fulfilling a wish (never mind the one whose wish it was was being so damn needlessly difficult) and the end of the world had caused her to perish before he could get her out. Apathy because he... flat-out didn't care if the universe was destroyed. The world had gone boom, yaaay. Mankind had finally up and died, yaaay.

Anyway. On to more important matters. Ah, so this was it? That's how things were going to be from now on. Life at the whims of so-called 'saviours.'

Let's all be happy here.

Avenger's thin-lipped smile was vicious. For a new home, it was sure sucked balls but hey. Beggars couldn't be choosers, could they?]

Well—isn't this surprising, but we'll see about that... What a vexing situation.

[Annoyed, he scratched at the collar around his neck. Stupid thing. He wanted it off him. There's a moment of silence before the door of the room opens, spilling the dim light of the hallway into the room and then clicks shut behind him as Avenger departs from the dormitory.

His footsteps pad down the hallway and were gone.

In the cathedral, there's the usual silence, solitary and deepened by the evening's dimness, dust particles drifting in dim shafts of light. There's a boy absolutely covered in tattoos seated in one of the back pews, head tilted back to gaze up at the vaulted, airy ceiling and the faint murmuring of some invisible mass, and chin resting on the palm of his hand. His torso is bare, modesty preserved by his red mantle and to some, his face is unnervingly familiar. Avenger is quiet, discontented and his yellow eyes are distant, clearly lost in thought.

The Servant had arrived on his floor after a period of wandering and stopped to take a break for awhile. It was silent here and at least they weren't playing that disgusting organ music.

... He smells like he's been killing monsters too.

But hey. What are you doing up so late tonight? It's close to midnight. Why are you in the church? ]

[ SCENARIO B || FLOOR 48: GRAVEYARD ]

[Perched atop a pale white tombstone like an errant bird of prey, Avenger surveys the rows of graves stretching out into the distance, his dull red cloak fluttering around his legs as he moved. The chipped, worn stone under his feet is cold. The Servant clung with one hand to the stone cross that made up the top of the tombstone balance himself.

The wide variety of the range of environments contained within this Tower was impressive, he'd give it that much. Overhead, the sun determinedly tried to burn through a thick gray cloud cover.

So far, he's walked through a demented carnival, a floating island barren of life, a colorful pit full of balls and the scent of something rotting, a dusty doll shop he'd been very creeped out by, a empty room full of bloody handprints and screaming, and a innocent little grassy meadow. And now a graveyard seemingly with a sky all its own. Really, it was a new experience.]

[ SCENARIO C || DORMITORY LEVELS: ROOM 03-12 ]

[In the morning:

This can't be right. No, this really couldn't be right. No, even if there was some mistake, this really, really, couldn't be right.

Seated on the bed, and re-reading the two letters given to all residents upon arrival, 'Shirou' shakes his head in angry denial, eyebrows furrowed. It had to be incorrect; the Holy Grail War had ended months ago, everyone was alive and maybe-happy and he had been certain he'd figured out the trick to ending the strange War currently ongoing, so things would go back to normal soon but now he's expected to wake up in a strange, unfamiliar place and simply swallow an explanation as improbable as this?

He could barely process this information at all.

Tohsaka, Sakura, Fuji-nee, Rider, llya, Saber, Issei, the ones he cared for and even the other Servants and their groups... All dead? Everything and every human being on the planet dead? Even one of his friend's deaths would be unforgivable. And he was supposed to willingly accept a version of reality where they were all dead and he survived instead? No. That wasn't something he could accept; he was a hero of justice. If anything like that had occurred, he would set it to rights. No matter what the cost or how impossible it was in practice. He had planned on ending the Holy Grail War in his world. He would stop whatever 'powerful force' could destroy worlds in this one, and make it give his world back if it truly had been destroyed. (Which it hadn't been. It hadn't.)

He needed answers. And not ones provided by whomever was the bunch of crazies who had kidnapped him to this Tower place, real answers. Yeah, it's decided. Shirou was going to look for answers.

After checking the trunk, and finding little of practical use in it since he was already dressed in his normal fare, the teenager walks out the door and pauses halfway down the hall, standing in front of it, belatedly realizing an error in his plan. He had no idea of where to go or what to do next. Where was he supposed to start?

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. His eyes squeezed shut.]

... Man, this sucks... How am I going to do this, I wonder?

[Let's try applying his fist to his forehead for starters. Sadly, the external application of force to his skull in an attempt to jog his brain, brings no flashes of insight with it and left nothing but pain behind as a result. Shirou rubbed his forehead slowly, wincing. Alright, not trying that again.]

[ SCENARIO D || FLOOR 1: CAFETERIA ]

[Eating the oatmeal before trying to eat anything was a general rule of thumb for the Tower, and usually veterans were thoughtful enough to inform newcomers of this rule but in this case, Shirou wasn't quite so lucky. Maybe it was due to the fact that he decided to cook his own breakfast when he realized they had a kitchen he could use, instead of eating at the food line. ~~Maybe Avenger's a childish brat who didn't eat the oatmeal before having a midnight snack.~~

So guess anyone in the cafeteria will be treated to the pleasant sight of some boy with burnt orange hair leaning over one of the trash cans set next to the wall, and his back heaving miserably as he pukes up his breakfast of fried eggs and rice.]

... U-ugh.

[[ooc: all replies from Shirou will come from

heroicprinciple

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ugh...

[Lancer rubs at his head as he walks down the all of the dorms. He was really, really tempted to just stay in bed today, but it was lonely in his room since Diarmuid wasn't there. They had been keeping close to each other for the last few days, comforting and reassuring each other. He feels antsy without his friend's presence, especially after the ordeal with the dragon thing (which included a warp spasm of all things). And he has to wonder if his friend is alright as well or if he got pulled into some other sort of chaos.]

[Besides, today was a workday. Five floors worth of toilets for him to clean. At least he got the one on his floor done rather quickly.]

[He's walking past a room with an open door when he notices, out of the corner of his eye, one of the inhabitants punching himself in the head. He has to stop and stare and wonder what the hell that kid was doing.]

[And while the Servant stops to stare in confusion, Shirou opens his eyes and notices him. There's an intense look of relief on his face when he places that familiar face; Lancer was one of the really belligerent heroes, but he was still someone he assumed to be from his world... even if the wardrobe and hairstyle was new. But not different enough to put him off.

And if someone from his world was still up and walking around despite claims to the country, then that probably meant those letters were actually a large package of low-price lies.

He takes a step closer, out of the open door and lifts up his hand in greeting.]

Hey! Lancer, that's you, right?

Huh? Yeah, that's me.

[He remembers seeing this kid somewhere, but he can't quite remember where. And he can't remember if he told the boy his name or not.]

[If that bemused reply registers as weird to Shirou on some level, he doesn't notice it and so just continues on in the same vein.]

Um. Okay, I just got here and found a couple of outrageous letters, so I was wondering... Did you receive the same letters as well?

Edited 2013-03-08 08:09 (UTC)

I did. Everyone did.

[He scratches his head. From the sound of it, the boy was a completely new arrival and had no memories of his previous stay. If that was the case, then how did he know Lancer?]

...Now, how do you know me?

Okay. [Pause.] It's not true. Has there been any proof offered our world has been destroyed?

[Shirou folded his arms, regarding Lancer in confusion. Wasn't the question of how did he know him was unnecessary? They had spoken on several occasions before this, not even a day or so ago, and had fought against each other in the Fifth; that wasn't something not easily forgotten...? And yet the Servant acted like he had no idea who he was.

Weird.]

We live in the same town.

[Live, present tense.]

...Yeah, some.

[He's not sure how to feel about knowing that their worlds are probably gone. On one hand, it means everything he remembers is now actually dead. On the other hand, he's always been more focused on protecting and caring about what he can see and not worrying about things that seem so distant.]

[He cocks his head as he hears the boy's answer.]

I've never caught sight of you in the city before. At least, I don't think we've ever spoken long enough for me to give you a name,

... And? What was the evidence?

[Shirou, however, knew exactly what to feel regarding this likelihood of their world suffering absolute destruction: it was a load of absurd bullcrap he could not accept. There was no way he, as a hero of justice, could let it stand without trying to fix it.

He looks puzzled at the man's reply.]

That makes no sense. Uh, Lancer, we've spoken at length plenty of times before.

[Not even counting the time you chased him down in the school and killed him.]

The fact that only our souls are here. And what some of us see when we get sent out of the Tower. Just ask over the network.

[He runs a finger along his collar.]

We've spoken once. In this place.

Network? ... Do we seriously have internet connection or something here?

[The answer Lancer gave him was both worrying and uninteresting. Shirou wasn't entirely stupid; if only the souls were here, then logically the meat-and-flesh bodies the souls resided within were not their originals. He didn't particularly care. A fake body was a minuscule concern as long as the soul was real. Fabrication of objects could be forgiven, especially for a faker like himself.

But they could get sent out of the Tower? Where could they go?

Home?

Shirou sighed in frustration, rubbing his forehead and trying hard to think of a reason why the Servant's memories were deficient and didn't match with his own. Finally;]

I think we remembering different things here.

No internet connection, but we can talk to each other using terminals.

And yeah...I'd say we aren't remembering the same shit. Fuck. Second Magic again?

[#The Second Magic #is a fucking pain the arse #ftw #tw: CONSTANT HEADACHES DUE TO TIMELINE SHENANIGANS]

Yeah. That's a good explanation for this problem, I think.

[He makes a frustrated little noise.]

Well, now that we've got that settled, guess you need to learn some stuff about the Tower. You probably don't know anything except what I've just told you, right?

And what tripe was in those letters. But yes, other than that, I have absolutely no idea what is going on with this Tower place.

[Dutifully honest.]

Guess I have to tell you more then.

[He clears his throat.]

Okay, this Tower has 100 floors plus all the dorm rooms. Some floors are more dangerous than others. Currently, the safest floors are the cafeteria on the first floor; the infirmary on the second; the library on the third; the lounges in floors 4, 14, 38, and 81; and the meadow on floor 25 if you're an outdoors person. Long as you stay on those floors during the day, it's not like anything bad is gonna happen to you. But at night, there's monsters everywhere except in our rooms.

Oh, and you have to go eat the cafeteria's oatmeal.

[ The information dump is appreciated since Shirou can actually understand the gist of it. The Servant didn't drone on and on like the fake priest did. So this tower had places of safety; a cafeteria, an infirmary, and a library, a couple lounges and a pleasant meadow. There were a hundred floors in all and most of them were deadly. There were mindless monsters that came out at night and swarmed the floors. You were always protected in the dormitories, be it bathed in moonlight or daylight.

~~Let's play a game: it's called "how fast can Shirou can stupidly get himself severely maimed or crippled in this place."~~

Shirou rubbed his chin, thinking. ]

... All of that sounds pretty cumbersome. But thanks for telling me, Lancer. I'll keep that in mind when I go looking around.

[ ~~Lancer, your advice about the oatmeal came too late.~~ ]

This place is pretty livable as long as you're not getting killed or caught up in an experiment, but death isn't permanent here anyways.

[ Interest caught: by not the death being impermanent (being caught in a time loop killed any novelty of that, and besides, he was Emiya Shirou; he'd gotten killed ~~without dying~~ plenty times before) but by the mention of—: ]

Experiments? Like, scientific experiments? That we can get roped into?

Pretty much. Sometimes it's switching bodies and other times it's aging everyone up. But shit like that happens, mostly in the middle of the month.

Damnit. It's just, random? That sounds even more pointless than what some magi get up to! And if they're as powerful as you said then there's no way to force them to stop that crap?

[Shirou looked frustrated and confused, angrily fingering his violet-filled collar with one hand.]

As far as we know. And some of us have tried to stop them, but they can freeze our limbs.

[Or at least Jason could with some fancy gadget. Zo had a barrier power and Ruana had other powers.]

[Could he swing a sword if his limbs were frozen, he pondered. Probably not. Very eloquently;]

Goddamnit. [A beat.] Well, could you tell me their names? I want to know who I need to save a punch in the face for.

You're gonna have to get in line if you wanna punch Jason. Everybody wants to put their fists into that remarkably punchable face. Other guys are Ruana, Riki, and Zo. There used to be Dax until Ruana ate him.

That's good enough. [Not the waiting in line bit. The desire sahred by many for justice to be served to this Jason via a gallery of knuckle sandwiches to the face bit... Okay. The current list of people that need an immediate punch to the face: Ruana, Riki, and Zo and—]

What?

[Everything Lancer said made sense right up until he mentioned an admin named Dax getting eaten by Ruana. Was she a being somewhat like a Servant that devoured souls for power? Or the Shadow? Shirou blinked slowly.]

She... ate him?

[Yes, good. Join the YFPJ (Yolos for punching Jason).]

Yeah, she did. Killed him him for rebelling against her, and then ate him for his powers.

...He was a good man. Better than most of his coworkers, at least.

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